The Sylvan lightly runs up to join him, notching an arrow in his bow, then swings around the corner of the tunnel, pulling arrows and shooting faster than I could have dreamed possible.
“There were only two Zhagarn, and both are down. Unfortunately, all ten of yours are also down,” Andras calls back to us. “I can’t see inside or behind that building, of course, but the horses aren’t calling out warnings.”
For a moment, I don’t understand—does he think horses talk? But then I remember horses turn restless around strangers and will shift in their stalls and nicker with distress. Surely, if anything would cause a horse distress, it would be the Zhagarn or, far worse, the Fell.
Neville crouches down to check his soldier, but he shakes his head and closes the man’s eyes. “He’s gone.”
Shouts crescendo behind us, and I whirl around to see a dozen armed men, all dressed in gravestone-gray clothing, running down thecorridor toward us. They’re brandishing swords and daggers, and their expressions are a study in grim concentration. When they get close enough for me to spot the iron armband around their biceps signifying they’re Zhagarn, my blood turns to ice, freezing me in place.
The Zhagarn are the monsters’ masters, and anyone who can force the Fell to obey their commands terrifies me more than the monsters themselves.
Next to us, Elianna calls to her magic, balls of shimmering light forming in each hand. She sends them sizzling along the ceiling to the attackers, where they drop on the men and set fire to their hair and clothes.
The Sylvan runs back to us and begins shooting arrows, while Chitai hurls knife after knife. The attackers keep coming, ducking and dodging, rolling in the mud to put out the fires, and ignoring any arrows or blades that dig into arms or legs.
But most of the arrows don’t strike arms or legs. They drive into hearts and lungs and even into one man’s throat when he raises his chin to shout. Chitai’s knives find similar homes, and one plunges into an attacker’s skull, taking his eye.
I bend double, afraid I’ll either faint or throw up from the grisly sight. Kaelen offers his hand. “I’ve got you.”
After a deep, shuddering breath, I take it and straighten.
We start for the end of the tunnel where Neville, Bern, and the dead soldier are grouped in the entrance. Before I follow Kaelen, though, I turn to find Trick. He drops into a crouch just before a charging attacker can run a sword through him. Trick viciously stabs up with Kaelen’s dagger, catching the man in the groin and yanking the blade up and through to his abdomen. The sharp smell of the dying attacker’s blood and loosening bowels is nauseating, and when I see the glistening coils of intestine, I turn away, retching, and stumble after the prince.
“That’s all of them, Neville,” Chitai calls out. “But your man is wounded.”
The soldier who hung back is clutching his shoulder, blood pouring out between his fingers.
Elianna rushes over to him, digging in her valise. She pulls outgauze and a jar of herbs and jerks her head at Chitai. “Cut his shirt off.”
The woman raises one eyebrow. “As you command, Air Touched,” she says mockingly, but she does as requested and bares the wound to be treated.
Elianna chants softly while she packs herbs into the wound, which stops the bleeding immediately. Then she wraps his shoulder with the gauze. “He’ll have to stay here,” she announces. “He can’t travel with this injury.”
“None of us may be traveling if we can’t get to the stable,” Kaelen says, staring out at the palace grounds.
I walk up beside Kaelen and look out. The stable is roughly a hundred paces from the end of the tunnel, the distance littered with fallen bodies.
“To the horses, then,” Neville says grimly.
“But your soldiers,” I protest. “We can’t just leave their bodies on the ground like this.”
“We can’t stop for them,” Kaelen tells me. “Our priority is to get you and your burden out of Pallanhold. Now.”
Neville nods at the bandaged soldier trudging toward us, his face drawn. “He’ll take care of our fallen. The prince is right, lass. Our gear is already in the stable, if the ravens-begotten Zhagarn didn’t steal or kill our horses and rob our packs.”
“The horses are still there and alive,” the sorcerer says, staring into the distance. “But … I feel something …Damn them!The enemy is warded. More attackers are coming from behind the stablenow.At least two, maybe three.”
“That few, we meet them head on, take them out, and go for the horses,” Neville orders. “Go!”
Bern pushes forward to stand in front of me. “I’ll protect you, my lady.”
Kaelen nods. “Good. Let’s go. I’ll take care of the attackers, and you protect Soli.”
Following Kaelen, we rush out of the tunnel toward the stable, but Elianna stops so suddenly we nearly run into her. She clutches her head and screams, a sound so high and brittle it must fracture any stars within reach. “I was wrong. The Fell! The Fell are here!”
Terror floods my veins with ice, and I freeze, unable to move another step. The Fell. Corvynne’s mutant creations. Here? In Pyrrh? It’s not possible.
And yet it’s true.
